How can startups in sub-Saharan Africa reap their potential in challenging environments? The October 2017 London ICT4D Meetup had some answers, which we'll summarize in four key points for this post. We also share the presentations given that night.

Summer's almost sang its last song, but for a startup there's no rest for the weary! That's why on Tuesday 26 September from 6:30pm, I'm hosting, along with my co-organizer Dama, an exciting line up of speakers who are working in or with startups in sub-Saharan Africa. We'll have private and public sector perspectives, along with a female co-founder of a fast-moving startup in Ethiopia. Spread the word and click here to register!

Last month, we hosted an engaging night of talks at the fantastic Newspeak House in Shoreditch. For those of you who were not able to attend, or who wanted to follow up on presentation points made, we have now shared the presentations online!

It's that time of the year again: Another incredible evening of ICT4D talks by some of the most interesting organizations working in the space: Open Knowledge International, BBC Media Action, OneWorld UK, Oxfam, and the British Red Cross! REGISTER HERE TO ATTEND!

Last month, I hosted an ICT4D Meetup that took ICT4D back to basics by exploring how messaging is still used as a vital tool in development work. We had five incredible speakers, whose details you can find from my previous blog post announcing the event. My major takeaway from the talks was that the old adage "Keep it simple, Simon/Sally!" still very much applies.

Panoply Digital would like to wish women the world over a very Happy International Women's Day and a felicitous Women's History Month to our sisters in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. In 2017, it has never been more important to #BeBoldforChange and to continue the fight for gender equality in all areas of life. Use of technology is increasingly becoming a tool in this endeavor, and our own Ronda Zelezny-Green is being featured on a panel today to discuss how she has approached her work in this area.

On Tuesday 28 March at 6:30pm in the GSMA HQ in Central London, we're delighted to be hosting our next Meetup (#ICT4DLdn) which is taking us back to basics with the use of messaging in ICT4D. We have five exciting speakers from organizations we're sure you'll love. You can join this Meetup by clicking here.

Well just when you thought 2017 had gone morally bankrupt, ICT4D is here to save your soul with a bit of #ICTDEthics! Our latest Meetup has all the trappings of a development worker's new year resolutions, with a bit of an academic twist.

These are all buzzwords associated with the Smart Cities concept, but what do they all mean and what is the relevance to ICT4D? Please join us at the London ICT4D Meetup on Tuesday 28 June 2016 at 6:30pm at the GSMA HQ to find out more. We're even hosting an IoT Design Workshop you will not want to miss!

I am typing this out from Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi reflecting on the past week spent with the good people of UN Habitat, specifically those associated with the CityRAP tool. The CityRAP tool trains city managers and municipal technicians in small to intermediate sized cities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to understand and plan actions aimed at reducing risk and building resilience through the elaboration of a City Resilience Action Plan.

A few caveats at the onset here. This reads a bit more like an academic piece which it largely is. It is drawn from something larger I wrote a bit ago for another paper. It might also read like an attack on the SDGs, which is not my point. The point here is that the SDGs have generated some incredible results and I sincerely support them, but we must be mindful of what is being mobilised in our pursuit of them. My focus is education and I suggest that the provisions of the SDGs related specifically to that field suggest particular scaled interventions (or at least make those approaches particularly attractive). Scale exacts pressure on particular types of education.

As part of my association with the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh (a version of this post appears there as well), I recently traveled with colleagues to deliver a three day workshop on digital education for Syrian academics who have been displaced by the conflict. The University has worked for a long time with the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA), a great organisation providing urgently-needed help to academics in immediate danger, those forced into exile, and many who choose to work on in their home countries despite serious risks.

We seem to have endless ideas on how to use Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). From job creation to women’s empowerment to civic participation, a number of ICT4D interventions have been developed and implemented over the years. Common question asked in my work is “what type of technology that might have biggest impact in our society in the coming years?”. As we have learned, ICTs in itself aren’t sufficient. While factors contributing to the success of ICT4D have become apparent, and many have written about them, I feel there's still a need to highlight some of them.

We have been some of the most vocal critics of Bridge International Academies (BIA), largely because most investigations and evaluations of their edtech impact to improve schooling in sub-Saharan Africa have been less than spectacular (many would say the impact is non-existent). So imagine our surprise to see Wayan Vota's latest ICTworks™ post highlighting the successes of BIA in Liberia.

We need to make women in innovation more visible, and correct the gender imbalance in the stories we tell. We need to tell more stories about the women working at the top of humanitarian innovation, and so today I sat down with Tanya Accone, Senior Advisor at UNICEF Innovation, to tell the story of a woman working at the top of a very visible humanitarian innovation team for a very visible humanitarian agency.

We do a lot of work on open learning as well and it was clear there was tension between these open educational platforms (like Coursera, edX, etc.) and their use in local contexts, particularly in emerging economies. There is tension there. Open educational technologies are too often framed as a transparent instrument for educational export, keeping (specifically Western or Global North) curricula, pedagogy, and educational values intact whilst they are broadcast to a global population in deficit.

I remember when I first started hearing the buzz about bots. My first thought? 'Here we go again...' - a reaction to the endless cycles of hype followed by business-as-usual that typifies the digital sector. However, over the past few months I've had the opportunity to design a few 'bots 4 good', and I'd like to share what I've learned: how they work, what they could be useful for, and where to start if you'd like to get one. I believe that done well, they could be really useful add-ons to your digital strategy as they provide a rich 'in-between' space for mobile users who aren't fully digitally literate.

Last week, I was at TICTeC 2018 where researchers, activists and practitioners discussed the impact of civic technology, or civic tech. This blogpost summarises the discussion of Two heads are better than one: working with governments.